Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Marthe Reed responds to Alejandro Butros on the 20th anniversary of above/ground press

Alejandro Butros was kind enough to interview me along with several other above/ground chapbook authors in honor of the 20th anniversary of above/ground press which is celebrating this Friday in Ottawa and launching four new chapbooks, mine included. The original article by Butros is over at Apt 613, however I thought I would share the full interview here, as he could only publish short excerpts from each of us.What does the work of above/ground
press mean to you?

Most striking to me about above/ground is the diversely situated writers who rob brings into confluence:
from Deborah Poe to Rae Amantrout to j hastain, from Fenn Stewart to Camille
Martin to Stephen Brockwell and Kemeny Babineau. rob mclennan brings a
wide-ranging eye and ear to this press, making conversations between Canadian
and U.S. writers, between established and developing writers, across modes of
poetic practice (visual, lineated, prose, etc.). above/ground is a meeting
ground, a congress of poets in conversation, and I am honored to have been
brought into that conversation.

Please share a memorable anecdote
about above/ground press.

For the past two years, rob has sent
me chapbooks from above/ground to distribute freely at the annual AWP
conference, and so I have found myself filling bags and wandering the halls,
handing out chapbooks, leaving chapbooks on tables, and offering these chaps
along with Dusie chapbooks at the Dusie-Black Radish Books book fair table. In
Chicago, Laura Goldstein ferried above/ground chaps into the conference from
her flat for me, though not all of them made it. Instead, she gave away the
remainder through The Red Rover reading series, which she and Jen Karmin run in
Chicago. Generosity, that is the essence of rob and above/ground.

When did you first hear about a/g
press? How has it evolved, if at all, since your first interaction?

Poets are often overlooked by the
press and publishers. Given that this article will be written for an
audience that is comprised mostly of non-writers, can you please explain how
critical a publisher like a/g press is.

Because of the breadth of rob's reach,
that diversity of writers and poetic impulses that he brings into conversation,
he builds and extends communities of writers, putting us into conversation with
each other, introducing us to work we might not otherwise know --of particular
value is the work he does through above/ground of facilitating connections
across the border, putting Canadian and U.S. poets face-to-face, as it were.

For those outside of Ottawa: Given
that you do not live in the National Capital Region, I would be interested in hearing
your view on the poetry scene here.

I hail from Syracuse, New York, now,
though only very recently. Before that I spent 11 years in Lafayette, Louisiana,
where the scenes in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, and to a lesser
degree Houston, were my immediate poetry world. What I know of Ottawa's scene,
I know through rob mclennan's blog, his work with above/ground press, his 12 or 20 questions interview series, etc. rob seems, from my distant vantage, to be
the heart and soul of Ottawa's poetry scene, so it will be great to be in
Ottawa this week and get a feel for the place first hand.

About Me

Marthe Reed //
A poetry chapbook press, Nous-zot takes its name from Louisiana creole for nous autres: a press originally situated at the edge of the Gulf, now domiciled in Syracuse, NY.
Nous-zot does not accept unsolicited submissions at this time.